Quotes from Richard Ben Cramer

He was J. DiMaggio, and that was his business. He always was served and hosted - he was America's guest. And I really I don't think we would have the athletes that we have today and the social system in which they live without DiMaggio and what he did.

At every step in his life, DiMaggio was what New Yorkers wanted in a hero.

What good was being the king of the rackets in Newark, N.J., if you couldn't have DiMaggio at your dinner table?

I used to think that the image of the press in the 1940s - a bunch of guys in hats screaming on the courthouse steps - was all baloney. I used to say, 'I know reporters. We're not like that.' But we are.

I'm just an old storyteller, and I always wanted to know, what the hell were these candidates really like?

People feel overloaded, that politics has become kind of a public utility: hot- and cold-running politics any time of the day or night.

You can say you're going to take a vacation, and you can even take the time, but you might as well not, because the book is still sitting in your head.

This book-promotion stuff is like a political campaign. You work your butt off, and at the end of the day, you can't tell if it's made a damned bit of difference.

It's very hard to imagine anybody being president when the stuff that's written about them is empty of who they are.

Certainly no man could be such an irredeemable 'schlub' as the American press portrays its losers.